


Dream Theory

by speedgriffon



Series: It's Just a Flesh Wound | Rosie Sheridan Fics [5]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Possible Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, friendship building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23781907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speedgriffon/pseuds/speedgriffon
Summary: Rosie has been experiencing a bout of nightmares, which she is trying to rationalize under scientific means. Butch manages to convince her otherwise. More emotions ensue.Set after Indecent Promposal.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Series: It's Just a Flesh Wound | Rosie Sheridan Fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710277
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Dream Theory

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: marcid - incredibly exhausted
> 
> Going through and answering some prompts for these two adorable, teenaged dorks. Rosie is long-lived OC that I haven't written a lot for but I intend to. Her and Butch really need to kiss, ya know.

Rosie knew she was asleep—she _always_ knew when she was asleep—a talent she had discovered in adolescence after reading about lucid dreaming in her father’s science textbooks. Perhaps the reading was advanced for her age, but nonetheless she was able to trick her mind. Ever since, she had been able to control her dreams on most nights. She was typically a heavy sleeper and the combination made her sleep-cycles very intense when things went awry. And lately, her dreams weren’t going the way she wanted them to.

That evening, she had tried to go to sleep at a reasonable time but found her mind was too restless. In an effort to not disturb her _housemate_ , Rosie snuck downstairs and cozied up in the corner of the couch with her journal, carefully detailing the last few days from memory. She glanced back up at the second story rafters, thinking if she focused hard enough she might hear Butch snoring through his closed bedroom door. She had given him the spare room after weeks of him hogging the sofa—he was starting to develop a strain in his neck on account of the fact he was too tall to sleep on it properly. It was still so bizarre to Rosie that _this_ was where her life had led her—kicked out of the vault and shacked up with Butch DeLoria.

It wasn’t all bad though—he pulled his weight (even if she had to encourage him sometimes), could clean and cook and was surprisingly good company. After the _prom_ stunt, Rosie had been walking on eggshells, carefully guarding her emotions as to not accidentally reveal or _do_ something stupid. She didn’t want to jeopardize what was starting to become a good friendship between the two, something they missed out on while growing up in the vault. She was convinced that with a little bit of time and logic her crush would dissipate and that one day she’d laugh about how ridiculous it all was.

Rosie hadn’t realized she’d been dictating some of these sentiments in her notebook and contemplated crossing them out when her eyes became heavy. She shifted, leaning her head against the back of the couch for a moment as she rested her journal against her curled-up knees. Being that it was well past midnight, it couldn’t hurt to rest her eyes for a while and attempt to traverse the dreamscape once more. As the darkness enveloped her, she struggled to maintain focus, trying to craft a pleasant atmosphere for herself. Instead, all she could see was the Capital Wasteland—particularly the Arlington Cemetery.

Her body was moving on its own, soft whispers echoing around her and metal creaking that she wanted to say was just the Megaton home adjusting around her. Frantically she tried to snap open her eyes but found herself paralyzed—a slight panic settled over her and she reminded herself to breathe or it would only be made worse. She floated through the gravesites towards a back plot where a strange man stood with a shovel overlooking a freshly dug grave. He motioned for her to get in, to which she struggled to lean away—something was preventing her.

“Hey,” he spoke. The voice sounded familiar, too quiet to tell. But it didn’t match the unknown, almost faceless man she was staring at. “Come on.”

Rosie couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. Again she resisted when the man reached out for her, this time his hands making contact with her arms—it sent a shockwave through her system in how it felt so real. She twisted her body, struggling to wiggle herself free but ultimately could not.

“Damnit, Rosie.”

How did the man know her name? She supposed it was a dream concocted by her brain, the imaginary assailant _should_ know. He gently shook her, his touch a contrast to what her mind was leading her to believe. She responded by pushing her hands out to grab him by the shoulders, gripping tightly as she willed herself to speak, to _scream_. She didn’t want to get in the grave, even if she knew it wasn’t real. The man shook her again, repeating her name.

Finally, with a sharp inhale, she snapped open her eyes and found her body reacting to delayed signals. Whomever was hovering over her got the brunt and she gripped their arms tightly, nearly headbutting them in an attempt to leap off the couch.

“ _Jesus_!” Butch yelped, his hands tightening around her shoulders as he set her back on the couch before she could get too far. She stared up at him, a mix of shock and embarrassment—caught in the midst of a nightmare and _why_ was he so damn close? “Holy shit, Stitches! You alright?”

Rosie swallowed hard, flexing her fingers when she realized she still had them wrapped around his biceps in a death-grip. He was wearing his white t-shirt, no leather jacket to cover up the muscles beneath, allowing her to get more than a good feel at his skin. When she felt her ears heating up, she let go, snapping her hands back to her sides. Butch seemed more focused on what had just occurred, assuring she wasn’t going to move before taking a hesitant step back.

“Got up to take a piss and saw you down here in the dark,” he explained with a shrug. “Wondered why you weren’t asleep. Didn’t realize you kinda were,” he scratched at the back of his head, and she noted the way his hair was hanging un-styled in bedhead waves. “Didn’t mean to scare ya’” 

She rolled her eyes at his vulgarity but crossed her arms to rub at her shoulders at the strange, underlying kindness in his words. He could’ve just stayed upstairs and ignored her but there he was, making an effort again and unknowingly chipping away at the defenses around her heart. Butch bent over to scoop up her journal that had dropped from her lap in his attempt to rouse her. At first, Rosie was convinced he would flip through it and see that she had been recently (and not so recently) been writing about him but to her surprise he very quickly handed it back to her with a smirk.

“I ain’t no snoop,” he said proudly.

She’d forgive him for the double-negative—turned out Butch could learn manners, but _grammar_ and speech etiquette would have to come later. He sat down on the sofa next to her, the cushion shifting under his weight. Rosie moved, tucking her legs under herself and wrapping her arms around her knees as she leaned back into the corner—physically blocking him from coming any closer. He mimicked her, resting against the back padding so he could face her—their knees and arms knocked together in the small space.

“What’s got you so startled?” he asked.

She shrugged, unable to meet his eyes. They were too curious, and they were too close for her comfort. She didn’t mean to be evasive in her answer. “I’m not sure.”

“Pfft,” Butch replied, furrowing his brows. The back of his hand lightly smacked against her knee. “Don’t you have an answer for everything, smarty-pants?”

Rosie scrunched up her nose at the nickname, shaking her head. With a sigh, she nuzzled her head into the back-couch cushion. “Not for nightmares. Dream analysis isn’t medical science. That’s phycology, and even then it’s a very specialized form of phycology. Practically a pseudoscience.”

“Again with the big words,” Butch teased, smiling. “You saying you don’t know why you were so scared because of a nightmare? Or that you need to study a nightmare to find out why you were so scared?”

“A little of column a, little of column b,” she responded, hiding her amusement when she noted the confusion in his expression. “My…journal is filled with dream evaluations. I haven’t been sleeping well, which is unusual, and I’ve noted an increase in night-terrors and sleep paralysis.”

“Sleep—wha?” Butch questioned, eyebrows raised.

Rosie shifted uncomfortably. “It typically happens when you are waking up and are aware of your surroundings but are unable to move or speak. You hallucinate things that are not really present, almost like you are trapped between imagination and reality. It can be very frightening.”

He bristled. “Jeeze, Stitches. If you ain’t got enough shit to deal with.”

She tightened the hold around her knees. What she wouldn’t divulge was the guilt she felt surrounding the sudden appearance of said nightmares. For months she had been sleeping blissfully, almost as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Even after her father died and while she grieved, sleep came naturally—it was only very recently that she had become plagued by visions of darkness and death—and she wanted to know why. Why now, and not sooner? Psyche wasn’t a perfect science, but she was determined to narrow down a cause like the pragmatic scientist she was.

“Hey uh,” Butch started, pulling her from her thoughts. His hand was tapping against her knee again, fingers tugging against her cotton sweatpants. “I got a theory.”

Rosie quirked up an eyebrow, wondering if her vocabulary had started to rub off on him after all. He sneered at her for a split second in teasing as if he noticed her subtle shift in expression. “Yeah, so, maybe dreams are just dreams and that’s all that’s to ‘em. Don’t let nothin’ in some fancy textbooks tell you otherwise.”

For once, Butch’s advice was actually _good_. Maybe Rosie _was_ too much in her head about her own thoughts and dreams. If all she did was obsess over every minute of her sleep-cycle, she’d be playing into the mad-scientist trope he’d been teasing her about for over a decade. Subconsciously, she adjusted her glasses and ran her fingers across her notebook.

“Writing is a good distraction,” she tapped the worn cover.

Butch softly laughed, and she realized his hand had moved to rest against hers. Their knuckles brushed with the contact, the heat of his skin radiating up her arm. Rosie resisted the urge to overreact, steadying herself—she really needed to get a grip of her feelings quickly if they were going to continue living under the same roof, let alone continue to travel together.

“A good distraction is a drink,” he suggested. With his other hand he gutted his thumb over his shoulder. “Moriarty’s is still open. Two of us could get a nightcap in, whadd’ya say?”

For starters, she didn’t drink, and Butch knew that. But that certainly didn’t stop him from persisting on occasion, wondering when she’d drop the goodie-two-shoes act. They weren’t living in the vault anymore and didn’t have to follow some Overseer’s rules about abstaining from alcohol while underage. Matter of fact, they didn’t have to abstain from a lot of things—Rosie decided to not let her mind wander. Secondly, she wondered if he knew the implications or innuendo behind what he said—likely not—she blushed, thinking maybe _she_ had read into his words instead.

“No thank you, Butch,” she declined politely, smiling at his overdramatic pout. “I appreciate the offer, even if you should’ve anticipated my answer.” She made to glance at her wrist for the time when she realized she wasn’t wearing her Pip Boy, the device left on her nightstand. Butch wasn’t wearing his either.

“It’s late,” she continued, guessing it had to be early morning. “A better idea is for you to go to sleep.”

He shook his head, leaning closer. “I ain’t goin’ to sleep unless you are too.”

“You are stubborn,” Rosie sighed, allowing a tiny smile to pull at the corner of her lips.

Butch smirked. “So are you.”

He shifted, pushing himself off the couch to stand before offering his hand to her. She gripped it, allowing him to hoist her upright even though she was perfectly capable of doing so herself. The two stood there for a lingering moment, hands gripped just staring at one another and Rosie thought back to just a few weeks earlier when they had been slow dancing in that very spot—how she had imagined what it would be like if they kissed. She wouldn’t dare to make that kind of bold move and there was no rational part of her mind that convinced her that Butch wanted any such thing—even if he didn’t seem eager to let go of her hand.

He nodded his head towards the stairs, and she followed his lead, glancing down at their clasped hands as they walked. Butch didn’t’ release his grip until they were outside their adjacent doors, turning to face her with a grin.

“Remember what I said,” he gestured to the journal tucked under her arm before moving his hand up to brush against her forehead. It was hard to tell if it was affectionate or playful. “Try not to worry that pretty lil’ head of yours.”

Rosie felt her cheeks go warm, and desperately tried to think of a witty comeback but the silence had stretched on for too long. She was destined to always be the quiet, fumbling nerd. Except now it was made much worse with her seemingly unrequited crush. She offered a tiny smile. “Goodnight, Butch.”

He returned the expression in kind, leaning against his doorway as he watched her shut herself away behind the closed door. “Goodnight, Rosie.”

**Author's Note:**

> say hello over on tumblr @ eeveevie
> 
> kudos and comments are always appreciated :)


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